The Frenchman (Crime Royalty Romance Book 1) (24 page)

I searched through the few channels for something American and was forced to settle on a terrible French police show. As if I didn’t have enough of that.

When Marie’s land line rang my heart leaped.

“Mom,” I exclaimed, love gushing from me at the familiar number on call display. Her deep-felt, hearty voice crossed epic distance and carried me home. We chatted for over an hour since she’d finally got an international calling plan, and it was wonderful to talk about home stuff and everything related to her life. I almost wanted to hop on a plane. She’d had a few dates but hadn’t met anyone she really liked. There were a few funny stories, and I admired that she had a good spirit about the duds. I told her I was dating someone. She asked about him, and, like a deflating balloon, I streamed out Louis-helium. His name. His profession. How handsome he was. His fame. She listened quietly.

I was surprised I’d told her, but I figured, across the ocean, what difference did it make? When I was done, she asked if Marie approved, and I sidestepped a direct answer by saying she hadn’t met him yet.

Then my mom did what she always does: got stern. “Are you having sex?” Not waiting for an answer, she continued, “No, I don’t want to know, just for God’s sake, Fleur, use protection.” Then she went on and on about the dangers of venereal disease. Honestly, it was pretty upsetting since I had
not
used protection with Louis and the things she was saying were disgusting. “MOM! I GOT IT!” I shouted, wanting to watch bad French TV badly. We wrapped up the call pleasantly enough, and I found myself sitting in the dark, TV on mute, fretting over genital warts.

Jesus! What had I been thinking?

I had gained very little perspective on Louis in his absence. I had hoped space apart would bring enlightenment over, well, the intensity of my emotions for him. But tonight, reality squashed me down into a tiny ball. I thought about how cold and mean he had acted the last night I saw him; how funny and sweet he was the next morning. How seasick I was riding his turbulent emotions.

I heard my cell ping from my purse. Hoping it was Jess, thinking maybe I would tell her everything, finally, I rose up and fished around in my purse for it. Dammit, I missed the call.

My heart flip-flopped at the number. Louis. He had programmed his number into my phone before he left. Did he have ESP?

My phone rang again.

“
Allô
?” I answered quickly.

Silence.

Shoot, did I drop the call?

I wandered over to the balcony, opened the window and stepped out.

“
Allô
?” I asked again.

“What did he say to you?” growled a voice I barely recognized. Adrenaline burned in my gut.

“Louis?” I recognized his voice, but he was clearly very upset. What now?!

“
Oui
. What did he say to you?”

I could hear the clang of metal on metal. Was he calling from a gym in Paris? Blood had drained from my face. My heart was pounding, unwilling to accept the only explanation for his question that made sense. Bastien.

“Uh—”

“I know he spoke with you outside the station an hour ago. What did he say?”

“How— How could you know that?” I was freaked out. Sincerely.

“Because I do. What did he say? Fleur, I grow impatient. Please answer my question.”

“He wanted to know why I was being so rude to him. I ran into him when I was visiting my mom,” I added.

“I know,” he answered. “And? What did you say to him?”

My lips flattened out.

“Louis, I don’t like your tone of voice—”

“What did you say to him?”

That’s it.

“I said I didn’t want anything to do with him because I thought he had used me to get to you that night in Noir and I don’t like being anyone’s pawn. Why don’t you get a wire on me next time so you can stalk me properly?” I added, and hung up the phone.

I was holy murder coated in fed up, quickly melting into remorse.

Had I really done that? Had I hung up on him?

Uh, Fleur, try asking the important question here: Was Louis really having you followed? Because how else would he know Bastien had spoken to you? I thought about Louis’s bodyguards, and his wealth, and dread crept into my conscience.

It was too much. Wasn’t it?

When the phone vibrated in my hand I dropped it. I was all jitters. I picked it up but I let it ring and ring and ring. It was Louis, calling back.

I was drowning.

I needed some kind of rescue.

On the third call I answered without saying a word.

“They follow you for your protection. In case people know we are together. It is a practicality,” he shot into the phone.

They. There is a
they
following me.

“You don’t understand the threats my family gets, and I am sorry for the things I cannot change,” he said, much quieter. My heart thudded against my rib cage, desperate to express the empathy I had for him. “You are not in danger,” he added. “I am keeping it that way. They keep you safe.”

I opened my mouth but nothing would come out.

“Do you think if I was stalking you, as you say, I would let you know I was doing so?”

“No,” I was forced to admit.

“Fleur, I only want to protect you.” Something about the way he said this strummed deep in me. It was heartfelt. The thing I couldn’t get over was that his family faced so much risk.

Maybe he was just overly protective. With concentration, I could label that “sweet.”

More silence. I didn’t know what else to say. I could have made small talk, but to be honest, I was frustrated. Louis had texted me once over the past week and there was another ten days to go before he would be back. We were having our first phone call and he could barely be polite.

“If Bastien bothers—”

“I can handle Bastien, Louis. Are we done?”

The silence almost reached out and touched me.

“I miss you.”

And . . . exhale. He’d punctured the growing divide with his deep, brandied declaration. A collage of moments rushed at me: his flush when he gave me the necklace, how he kisses the top of my head unexpectedly, how he expresses his need for me when he’s inside of me.

“I miss you, too,” I heard myself whisper.

“Come to Paris next weekend after the final match. We will spend Sunday together and return together on Monday.”

Paris?! And yet, the way he’d asked . . . no, he hadn’t asked at all. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re bossy?” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

After a moment, he gave me a breathy laugh.

“Yes, you.”

I smiled, and thought about his demand. Come to Paris? Excitement swarmed my already crowded brain. I had been dying to see more of France, and was secretly disappointed Marie had not been taking me on weekend road trips like I’d fantasized.

“Fleur,” he stated, waiting for me to concede.

“Well, I would like to, but I don’t think I can get off work on Monday.” Sylvie had me working in the front of the store every day now—Anne had had a baby girl.

“
Oui
, you can. Sylvie owes us that.”

Owes us?
So, did she know who her savior had been then? She’d never said a word to me.

“Fleur, you will love Paris, and I will love you in Paris. I will send a car for you next Saturday morning, at 8:00 a.m. to take you to the airport.”

I stared at the
Call Ended
message. Wow, did he give terrible phone or what? That was definitely not one of his strengths, I decided, wrapping my arms around myself.

I will love you in Paris, he’d said.

How could a girl resist that?

Wow. Triple wow.

I’d looked forward to Paris with a hopeful heart for ten painfully long days, and there wasn’t any let-down upon my arrival. Louis had booked us into one expensive hotel. Hôtel Fouquet’s Barrière was a five-story palatial wonder located on the Champs-Élysées, which, be still my beating heart,
is
the world’s greatest shopping street. I settled in, noticing his bags were already here and some things unpacked. My heart swooned at his almost-presence. I fondled his travel kit in the floor-to-ceiling marble bathroom and sniffed his cologne.

Somehow, some way, the airplane ride, the frantic Parisian streets, the familiar earthy, carnal scent of Louis’s clothes, all worked to dissolve the shroud I’d lived my life behind. The plain truth was unfolding around me. There was no rhyme or reason to one’s life, no way to control your destiny. Sure, you could set goals, work toward them. Make assumptions. But events would continually surprise you, and, just as the weather changes, people would come and go like sunshine and storms. And all you could do was check in with the forecast, try to dress appropriately, and carry on. Louis was real. We were real. And I didn’t have to be scared or hide or wonder at my feelings for him. I also didn’t need to hide him from Marie.

I felt steadier in that Paris boudoir. I held a new conviction: to question the things that threaten all my pretty, little ideas. Maybe because I wanted to be the kind of person who believed there was happiness in rainstorms, too.

I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. A confident woman stared back at me. I smiled.

I knew Louis wouldn’t be joining me until much later. He’d explained that significant others just did not attend teammate celebrations. I didn’t care because
he considered me a significant other
.

To keep me busy in the meantime, he’d booked me a personal tour of the city of lights at dusk. After I freshened up I met Martzel, a friendly blond-haired man, in the lobby, and he informed me that he would be my chaperone until Louis returned. My ire peaked that Louis had arranged one, but instantly disappeared because of Martzel’s enthusiasm and the luxury of being driven around Paris.

Martzel was about my age and full of energy. He took me around to the city’s most spectacular highlights—the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame—and threw money around to skip line-ups. There was a lot of getting in and out of the car, and he showered me with nuggets of history. I longed to
ooohhh
and
aaahhh
over things with Louis, like the twinkling lights on the Eiffel Tower, but I wasn’t going to complain.

Martzel was flirting his pants off, and I slipped back into being Flirty Fleur like an old, comfortable shoe. I knew it was harmless because Martzel was as much in love with Louis as he was, well, with everything. He went on and on about how Louis was a great rugby player, how lucky France was to have him on their national team, too, and how his Toulon club team should give him more breaks so he wasn’t so tired when he played for France. I loved hearing about Louis in this way.

By the time Martzel dropped me back at the suite, I was feeling full of gratitude. I was beyond fortunate to have had a day like today. And I was coming home to a glorious three-thousand square foot presidential suite.

And yet, my chest felt tight. Peering inside of myself, I decided I wasn’t comfortable with the wealth; maybe because it wasn’t mine. I was a guest. Being hosted. By a famous man—who was keeping me a secret. All that “world at my feet” crap I’d just experienced was only an idea. The reality was that part of Louis’s allure, his quiet, aloofness, confused and worried me.

My mood had darkened, and I let it.

For a while I just sat in the window seat, staring down at the lit-up Champs-Élysées, reveling in the sense of being alive in a city where two thousand years of heartache, love, and life had marched civilization forward.

It really gives you perspective on your place in the world.

Or, for me, in a revelatory haze, perspective on what you might expect from the world. Kindness was all I wanted. But I wasn’t so sure I should be expecting it all of the time.

I guess by “late”, Louis had meant
wee hours of the morning
late. I ordered room service, and by the time I finished it was eleven-thirty p.m.

I went to bed in a sheer nightie I’d bought on a whim a year ago hoping maybe
someday
I would need some sexy sleepwear that was actually comfortable. But I couldn’t go under. It was a strange bed. I was in a lonely mood. And I felt a horniness so deep it threatened to trigger a headache. It had been close to two weeks since I had seen Louis.

Whiskey breath.

That’s what woke me.

“Fleur,” he garbled, blasting me with bourbon and his familiar cologne.

He had returned. Finally. It was like I hadn’t slept at all. “Louis,” I exclaimed, sitting up. I got on my knees and hugged his big hard body to me. He was dressed in pants and a white shirt, and stumbled into me. Oh. I pulled back. His eyes were glassy and he wore a smile I’d never seen on his face before.

“
Ah, que tu m’as manqué!
” His words, how much he’d missed me, dripped with sincerity, and he hugged me to him tenderly, possessively rubbing his hands over my body, sticking his face in my hair and inhaling. My heart beat faster. This was a different Louis. A very drunk Louis. “
Regarde-toi! Tu es un ange
.” He petted my hair back and cupped my ass, staring down on me as if I were his long-lost love. His words were fast and blended into one another, but I melted at what I had caught.

He’d called me an angel.

“
Je veux te gicler sur la gueule
(I want to come in your face),” he growled. Oh. Not so sweet anymore. My pulse sped up and my cheeks flashed red. I yelped when he bit my neck, and leaned back wide-eyed.

I slipped out of his embrace, easily—wow, his wits were definitely slowed—and squirmed backward on my knees, wary of his drunken lust, but his face wasn’t displaying its usual stark need.

It was soft. His eyes were relaxed and he took me in with open adoration. “Every time I see you, those angel eyes, I want to make you get on your hands and knees and beg.” He said this in slurred French so tenderly, so nasty, tugging his shirt out of his pants. He could have been quoting Shakespeare and Marquis de Sade one after the other.

I laughed. Thanks to the alcohol, I was witnessing the two sides of Louis he seemed to struggle to hide, and certainly had never showed me at the same time before.